1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system, information processing apparatus, display processing method therefor, and computer-readable storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, digital video contents such as images and video managed by users are increasing dramatically. A highly interactive user interface (to be referred to as a UI) with a quick response is required to smoothly browse an enormous amount of digital video contents.
Such a UI is provided using read-ahead caching. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-101969 discloses a method of predicting the next operation, performing read-ahead caching, and switching the display immediately after the operation. In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-26986, while the same operation continues, contents hit for a search condition decided by an operation are read ahead preferentially. This enables high-speed display switching (e.g., high-speed scrolling).
In addition to read-ahead caching, there is proposed a technique of changing the data amount in accordance with an operation and display form. For example, according to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-232595, if readout of data delays upon page feed in list display, the information amount is decreased to read out and display data. This method improves followability to a user operation. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-146326 proposes a method of improving followability to a user operation by using a thumbnail image prepared in advance in a high-speed search mode.
However, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2003-101969 and 2008-26986, caching can be performed only under limited conditions in an environment where hardware resources such as the cache memory capacity and arithmetic processing speed are limited. For example, read-ahead processing can perform read-ahead of data in one direction based on a single type of operation recognized to continue. However, this processing considers only read-ahead of data in one direction. In addition, read-ahead is done only during a stop.
For this reason, caching cannot be done for certain types of search conditions (search conditions which cannot be cached), failing to achieve a cache hit rate which satisfies a user. According to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-232595, the user cannot stop an operation on a content he wants. Further, the method in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-146326 does not give a sufficient degree of freedom in deciding content data. Even if cache control is used, this method cannot achieve a cache hit rate which satisfies a user.
As described above, it is a challenge to increase the cache hit rate with respect to a user operation and provide a UI highly interactive with a user.